


Stronger Than That Which I Oppose

by Mo1eculeMan



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon-Typical Asskicking, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Original Character(s), Prompt Fill, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 20:42:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19048036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mo1eculeMan/pseuds/Mo1eculeMan
Summary: Sorrel Brown can feel Dust nearby - a lot of Dust - and where lots of Dust is involved, he tends to take interest. Prompt fill for the r/fanfiction May 2019 Prompt Challenge, based on the prompt words "grenade" and "diary", and the tropeTrench Coat Warfare.





	Stronger Than That Which I Oppose

Sorrel adjusted his coat as he stepped through the forest as quickly as he could, keeping the trail just barely in sight.

“Almost there,” he muttered to himself softly. “Whatever this is, I gotta check it out.” Sorrel could feel something - Dust, more specifically, and lots of it - and he took great interest in anything involving lots of Dust.

He perked up a bit when he heard a voice in the distance, and he stopped moving to listen closer.

“That way,” he muttered, pointing vaguely down the path in the direction he’d been heading. When he tried to listen more, though, his ears filled with a buzzing he’d never quite adjusted to. The voice gave way to the sounds of the forest, and Sorrel grunted, unsatisfied. He stepped over to a particularly large tree and unslung his weapon from his back: a heavy double-barreled break action shotgun, dark gray and folded in half at the moment. He locked the barrels in place and flipped it over, pressing a button near the muzzle. Upon doing so, two shovel blades popped out of the stock, and using his newly-transformed shovel dug at the dirt underneath a particularly broad root. After a short while he hit what he was looking for. He reached down as far as he could, and pulled out a round chunk of brown Dust, small enough to hold comfortably in one hand.

 _Earth_ , he thought to himself, tucking it into his jacket. _Decent quality. SDC’ll pay some good money for this one_. As soon as he’d touched it, the buzzing faded, and he turned his attention again to the trail.

“Still there.” If Sorrel could still feel all that Dust from as far away as he was, it had to be refined, which was even more unusual considering he was on the outskirts of the Emerald Forest. Beacon, Vale, and the rest of civilization were miles away. The presence of so much purified Dust was, to say the least, perplexing.

A gunshot rang out amidst the relative quiet of the forest, jarring Sorrel from his thoughts. Slinging his weapon on his back once more, he ran for the tree line and slid into a shrub. He stuffed a hand into the folds of his coat and searched from the foliage for his would-be assailant, but nobody revealed themselves. He gave it a few more seconds, just to be sure. With caution, he slowly let go of the small round object he had been grasping in his coat and exhaled.

 _Whatever that is, it can’t be good_ , he observed. He crept through the forest as quietly as he could now, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign of, well, anything. The slow, steady breath of the wind rustled the trees, but it was cold now. Foreboding. Sorrel drew his coat closer around him.

“Help…” A voice floated through the silence, weak and unsteady. Sorrel looked around for the source of the noise but saw nothing until he heard the same plea again. “You, Huntsman behind the tree, please, help me…”

Sorrel pinpointed the speaker this time: a crumpled figure by the side of the path, half under a bush. He gave one more cautionary glance around before running out into the open.

He turned the figure onto its back. A Faunus man, evident by the horns protruding from his temples. His hand rested loosely on his stomach and crimson blood leaked through it. Gunshot wound. Already pale.

“Who did this to you?” Even as he spoke, Sorrel ripped off the Faunus’s shirt and pressed it to the wound, doing the best he could to staunch the blood flow.

“Traffickers,” the Faunus forced out through gritted teeth. “They were bringing us to Atlas, to work in the Dust mines. I refused to go, and, well, you can see what happened. They’re still going down the path. Don’t know you’re following. Already have a cache of Dust with them, for their weapons. Get out of here,” he warned. “Call for help. Nothing you can do. My daughter…” He pulled out a small book from his pocket. The corner was stained crimson. “I’m not going to make it. I want you to find her, Huntsman. She’s everything to me. She’s got her whole life ahead of her. She loved writing in this.”

“You’re gonna make it, sir. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” In truth, Sorrel had no idea if the Faunus would survive such a bad wound. He’d already lost plenty of blood, and without an unlocked Aura to heal him and the nearest hospital miles away, his chances were basically zero.

He could fix one of those problems, at least. Wordlessly, Sorrel shrugged off his coat and rolled his shoulders as the weight fell off them. Much better.

“Gonna need you to hold still, please.” Sorrel rubbed his hands together and placed one on each of the Faunus’s shoulders, trying to clear his mind as best he could. “Do your best to concentrate.” Deep breath in, deep breath out.

“For it is in acknowledging weakness that we find our true strength.” The words flowed out like he’d said them a hundred times before. “Through this, we become unstoppable in the face of danger and triumph over all that threatens that which is dear to us. Stronger than that which I oppose and an undying protector of that which I love, I release your soul, and by my power, guard thee.”

The effect was immediate. A pale yellow glow flickered to life around the Faunus which grew more persistent by the second. Instantly, he sucked in a breath, almost sitting up fully with a lurch. Sorrel’s Aura, conversely, glimmered dark brown and quickly faded as he went on.

“What happened? What is this?” There was more amazement in his voice than wonder, and the strain had gone.

Sorrel pressed him to the ground lightly. “I unlocked your Aura, the manifestation of your soul. Every living thing has Aura, and now that you have it unlocked, it can heal you, protect you. You’re not invincible, but with luck you’ll get out of this just fine.”

“How… how can I thank you?” Again the Faunus tried to get up and again Sorrel kept him lying down.

“You can thank me by not dying,” he panned. The expected wave of exhaustion had finally hit Sorrel and he sat heavily on the ground. He reached over to his coat and started rifling through the pockets. “Unlocking Aura takes a lot out of me, and if you die and I wasted it all, then neither of us would be happy, now, would we?” he chuckled weakly. His fingers closed around the tiny vial and he uncorked it, pouring out a miniscule amount of yellow Lightning Dust into his palm. Without a second thought, he brought his hand to his face and inhaled hard through his nose.

Taking Lightning Dust intranasally was, as Sorrel loved to put it, electrifying in more than one sense of the word. The buzz of the little particles lanced through his nervous system as soon as they hit his sinuses and he felt the hairs on his arms stand on end. Energy surged through him and his Aura blazed to life for a moment before fading a bit; it was tinged a little bit more yellow than usual now. Sorrel picked up his coat and hopped to his feet with a new spring in his step, dusting himself off quickly.

“That’s much better, phew!” he commented.

“Did you just… snort Lightning Dust?” the Faunus asked from the ground.

“Yeah, kinda. Through the nose it really hits your system quick, and I need to boost to my Aura if I’m gonna be finding those traffickers. And no, you can’t have any,” he added, because he could feel the question coming on. “You’re not used to having it in your system so it’ll be much harder on you. It also gives me a _massive_ headache once it wears off, so if you don’t mind, I’m gonna be on my way before I start to crash.”

“Huntsman,” the Faunus insisted, “take my daughter’s diary. Please. I’ll make it, thanks to you, but I want her to have it.” Sorrel hesitated, but gave in. He took the journal and tucked it into his coat.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” he said. “Don’t even worry about it.” With a nod, Sorrel took off down the road at a quick jog. He unslung his shotgun and opened the break, digging through his spare ammo for a few Dust rounds.

Sorrel rounded a bend and skidded to a halt, ducking behind a tree when he sighted people further down. Faunus, chained at the ankles and wrists in two lines. At least two dozen: men, women, and, disgustingly, children. Six armed men, - no, hang on, eight - each with a standard-issue rifle trained on the shuffling line of prisoners. Many carried heavy-looking backpacks, and on focusing them, Sorrel could sense the Dust crystals in a few.

“How to go about this…” he muttered to himself. His shotgun was a nifty weapon, sure, but ineffective at a distance, and he didn’t want to risk the Faunus by drawing attention from so far away. At the same time, though, he couldn’t afford to be slow, because once the Lightning Dust wore off, he’d be completely out of energy.

He slung his weapon on his back and once again dove into his coat pockets, and pulled out a smooth metal orb, etched with little brown markings on one side with a button on top. He tossed it in his hand once, pressed the button, and winding his arm gave it an almighty throw, chucking the object deep into the woods. A beat, then another, and then-

The Dust grenade detonated in a moderately-sized cloud of rock and soil as the powdered Earth Dust ignited. Bits of dirt, wood, and burnt flew out from the blast site and Sorrel ducked as a pebble almost hit his face. “Sorry, forest,” he apologized.

The traffickers all looked around for the source of the explosion, and upon catching sight of the plume of dirt sent two to investigate. The rest forced the Faunus to their knees, and from what Sorrel could tell they appeared to be barking orders. Or threats.

 _Looks like they’ve done some of the dividing for me. My job to conquer now,_  he decided. The battle plan started falling into place piece by piece as Sorrel watched the two traffickers pick their way through the brush. One went left, the other went right - there’s the opening. Up he went, channeling a bit of his Aura into a jump. He grabbed a sturdy tree limb above him and clambered to a steadier position, before hopping across to another branch, and another. Over one of them now.

 _Need to be fast._ He took out another grenade, this one marked with yellow and gray, and tossed it at the trafficker farther from him while his back was turned. _No time to waste._ Sorrel unslung his shotgun and popped out the shovel blades, and hopped down, landing just behind his target. There was any time to turn around before he got a hard smack with the flat end of the shovel, and he crumpled.

“Hey!” Sorrel called over at the other trafficker, and as soon as he turned Sorrel squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears.

The Air and Lightning Dust stun grenade he’d thrown finally went off, and even while he was expecting it, that didn’t stop his ears from ringing for a bit after the blast. Upon opening his eyes again, Sorrel found the second trafficker sprawled on his back, unresponsive but apparently not seriously hurt.

More shouting from the main party now as the flashbang drew their attention, and Sorrel ducked behind a log as a few started into the woods in his general direction. Up into the trees again, jumping from branch to branch to close distance as fast as he could. _Still haven’t seen me_ , he mused, watching them fire into the woods. He perched in a tree near the edge of the road, taking stock of the situation.

Three with rifles drawn, now finished firing at random into the woods, on guard. Two with bags of Dust loading their weapons up with crystals: one with fire, one with lightning. One training his gun on the Faunus prisoners. _That one first._

Another grenade from his coat of many kabooms, this one marked brown and white. Primed, armed, thrown into the middle of the main group. The powdered Air and Earth Dust inside sent smoke around the area. A moment of confusion, scattered gunfire - _please let none of the Faunus get hit_ \- and Sorrel made his move.

He leapt out of the tree, cocked his shotgun, and landed among the Faunus, and quickly slammed the shovel into the first trafficker’s head. _Five left_ , he counted in his head. A Lightning Dust round from his shotgun flew into the cloud of smoke, illuminating the silhouettes of three more. Sorrel cocked his shotgun. Fire Dust rounds in the chamber. He shot at the closest one, and he was knocked off his feet in a blaze of flame, back into the haze. Shots came at him now that he’d finally revealed his position, and Sorrel charged full-tilt at the next trafficker. More shots at Sorrel, which he blocked deftly with the head of his shovel. He closed the distance to his next target, who he smacked with the barrel of his shotgun before finishing him off with the shovel end.

 _Four more_. Sorrel grabbed a vial of Dust - Air, according to the label on the side - from his jacket and threw it into the air, shooting it at the peak of its arc. The blast of wind dissipated the smoke almost immediately.

A bullet hit his right shoulder from the trafficker he’d not kept track of and Sorrel doubled over in pain. His Aura flickered weakly around him. _Still some left, but not enough to last_. Worse still, the Lightning Dust he’d taken earlier was definitely starting to wear off, and the pressure in his head was starting to build. A migraine would follow in a few minutes. Sorrel shot behind him at the large backpack of Dust he could sense in the same direction, and a yell confirmed he’d hit his mark. _Three_.

Out of his coat (running low on devices, Sorrel noted) came a device marked with cyan blue. He activated it and set it on the ground, and the Hard-Light Dust inside projected a smooth bubble of transparent energy around him. He righted himself and watched the three remaining traffickers take aim and fire at his new shield, the bullets pinging off harmlessly. _Won’t last for much longer_. The one with the backpack of Dust was using Ice rounds, and with each impact a sheet of ice spread up and down the dome until he couldn’t see his attackers anymore.

Sorrel used the opportunity to pull some more special shells from his dwindling ammo supply. “Better be some good Dust in those bags of theirs,” he grumbled to himself. Ice, then Fire, then Lightning. Hw steeled himself, and just as his barrier gave out he dived from around the wall of ice.

He fired at the person nearest him, and his gun became fully encased in ice as the shot hit home. _Two_. Sorrel pivoted and found the next closest, who went flying upon impact with his incendiary shot. _One_.

The last trafficker, as it had turned out, had one last trick up his sleeve for Sorrel, in the form of a saber that he’d not noticed before. While Sorrel had been taking care of the other two, the last one had charged him head-on and aimed a deadly overhanded swing at Sorrel’s head. He barely reacted in time, raising his weapon to block the swing, and the blade stuck fast in the metal barrel. The trafficker sent him sprawling with a kick, and the force was enough to knock his weapon from his hand.

Disarmed, and with his Aura almost completely depleted, Sorrel lifted his head with some difficulty. The final trafficker was snarling down at him, gloating in his victory.

“You caused one hell of a headache, Huntsman, you know that?” he growled. “I’ll mount your head above my mantle for all the trouble you’ve put me through!” The killing blow came down... and never connected.

The trafficker looked in shock at the man - no, Faunus - that had grabbed his wrist mid-swing, his abdomen bloody and face twisted in a grimace, but his Aura blazed bright yellow around him. The Faunus reared back and slammed his forehead into the trafficker’s in a wicked headbutt, and the latter crumpled into a heap on the ground, and moved no more.

“You…” Sorrel squinted up weakly at his saviour, who offered a hand to help him up. He took it and staggered weakly to his feet, picking up his weapon from the ground and pulling the embedded sword from the barrel.

“‘Stronger than that which I oppose,’ is what you told me, right, Huntsman?” The Faunus smiled at him warmly. “I slogged all the way down here once I heard the fighting start. This Aura really pulled through for me. Thank you.” He put out his hand, and Sorrel shook it. “We’re indebted to you, all of us.” The other Faunus gathered around the two of them, cheering and thanking Sorrel for saving them. A small girl, no older than eight, ran up to the Faunus and threw her arms around his midsection; he responded by hoisting her into the air and squeezing her tight.

“Thanks to you, Huntsman, I get to be with my baby girl again. Free. If there’s anything we can do to repay you, please, let us know.” The tears started, and the Faunus buried his face into his child’s shoulder once more.

“On the contrary, sir, I believe there’s something I should be giving to you.” Sorrel reached into his coat one more time and pulled out a small book, stained red at the corner, miraculously intact. “As thanks for saving my life. We’ll call it even.” The Faunus took it gingerly and gave it to his daughter.

His daughter, of course, hugged him back, grinning from ear to ear.

  



End file.
